Sex Differentiation of Morphological Characteristics and Motor Skills in Preschool-Aged Children

Abstract

Aim. The research was conducted with the aim of determining preschool-aged children's sex differentiation using the multivariate and univariate variance analyses (MANOVA/ANOVA). Material and methods. A battery of measuring instruments comprising 17 variables (8 morphological characteristics variables and 9 motor skills variables) was carried out on a sample of 69 children (49 boys and 20 girls), aged 5 and 6, from the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in the Republic of Croatia. Results. The results showed that, between boys and girls of this age, there are multivariate statistically significant differences in arithmetic meanings at the level of p = .022 in the entire system of morphological and motor variables, whereas univariate values did not show a statistical significance. Conclusion. The conclusion is drawn that in the morphologic space in children between the ages of five and six years, there are quite equal developmental processes based on sex differentiation and genetic determinations (4:4); however, this is more pronounced in the motor space in favor of the girls (2:7) at this age.

The cardiovascular system’s adaptation among judokas of preschool and primary school age (on the example of the general preparatory stage in the yearlong macrocycle)

“…This fact allows us to conclude that the composition of technologies for preparing preschoolers in judo is still a new topic for scientific analysis. At the same time, a comparative analysis allows us to conclude that the methods and technologies of sports training for children of both primary school age [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and preschool age [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] in the theory and methodology of physical culture have been studied quite well. Returning to the physiological theme of this work, it should be noted that if, in general, the reactions of the body's functional systems to physical activity also are quite well studied (including the cardiovascular system's reactions; for example, we can refer to a number of recent studies [33][34]), then the same questions with concretization for the characteristics of physical and mental loads in judo have been studied to a lesser extent.…”